Nov 17 Israeli Artist InAbell Reveals Mesmeric Ballad "Nightgown"

In the new music video for “Nightgown,” Tel Aviv based singer-songwriter InAbell moves like a ghost in the shadows, watching a young woman’s morning unravel in reverse.

Shot entirely in black and white, the video is stunningly disconnected. There’s a dark energy to the narrative, something that just feels wrong as we watch the lead — Dani Landsberg — half-heartedly follow a routine that moves backwards. This remarkable fact is entrancing to look at, the expertly-framed shots allowing us the perfect position to see clothes flying through the air, people walking backwards, coffee jumping back up into the spout it belongs. There’s a story here, but it’s not told through words, making it all the more beautiful.

Though its music video accompaniment is mesmeric, the audio for “Nightgown” is too. The track — a creeping, dreamy soundscape — opens with a heavy-handed piano line plinking and trilling among the trickle of a rain shower in the background. InAbell’s voice comes in, this marvelously mellow wisp, singing clipped abstract lines like the strangely poignant “I will calculate the hour by the warmth of your coffee cup.”

The tender keys are joined later by deep blooms of hard-hitting percussive slaps, these great big thumps announcing their arrival. There’s the twang of electronic components, too, buzzing with vibrato. Sandwiched in between the piano and the electronica are groupings of rapid-fire percussive warbles practically bubbling up into the shadowy, ethereal soundscape InAbell has built. Just like its visual counterpart, “Nightgown” is a hazy dream world where things aren’t quite right but, good god, they are beautiful.